One Two
by kwritten
Summary: Elena doesn't know how long she's been in Damon's bed - nor does she really care A/N: I'm not even sure what my life is right now - this began in my head as a crack!fic about Elena and Damon spending too much time on their laptops ... and then Elena Gilbert happened, so obviously there's more to it than that. (Spoilers through end of S3)


**Title:** One. Two.  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Warnings:** illusions to rough sex, depression, character death  
**For:** Elena Gilbert Comment!Ficathon, Part 2 ... sort of. This is a combo of about 5 prompts that apparently got all muddled in my head and this is what came of it  
**Characters/Pairings:** Elena(/Damon), Caroline  
**Wordcount:** ~1500  
**Summary:** Elena doesn't know how long she's been in Damon's bed - nor does she really care  
**A/N:** I'm not even sure what my life is right now - this began in my head as a crack!fic about Elena and Damon spending too much time on their laptops ... and then Elena Gilbert happened, so obviously there's more to it than that.

She snaps her gum.

Loud. Cracking. One. Two. Threefourfivesixseven.

She remembers being human, hating girls who cracked their gum as they walked - swinging their hair to and fro with no care in the world. _Didn't they know how to be a woman? Didn't they see how they were playing it wrong?_ Girls who cracked their gum, chewed too fast, talked too loud, drove too fast. Girls who cracked their gum weren't anything like Elena Gilbert.

One. Two. Threefourfivesixseven.

She feels Damon's feet move restlessly under the blankets and she looks up from the laptop heating her lap. His eyes are narrowed, as he leans against the headboard across from her, their legs in a tangle above and below the sheets and comforter on his large bed, his toes occasionally cracking near her thigh, her hip.

One. Two. Threefourfivesixseven.

Elena continues to type uninterrupted, as she watches Damon's face - intently staring at his computer screen, the blue glare causing his face to glow a pale green. It's unattractive. He studiously doesn't look up, doesn't lose focus.

One. Two. Threefourfivesix.

She blows a bubble then sucks it into her mouth with a large whoosh and a pop, looking back down at the jumble of words on her own screen. His head raises slightly as hers bows. But what does she care? _Why should she care that his legs are pressed against hers, under the tangle of fabric. It is still disconcerting, they should be so warm - so overheated. _She can sense that the room is too warm, quite stuffy actually. The thick curtains are pulled shut, but the hot summer sun beats just on the other side and there they are - still in bed and it's afternoon on a Wednesday _(where would she have to go, anyway?)_ and she's wearing one of his black button-up shirts over a pair of boxers _(what does she need with real clothing, anyway?)_ and he's... she raises one eyebrow at him. It's possible he's not wearing anything at all. _And with all that heat and no circulation and their bodies so close to each other, she should be sticky, warm, and restless. But everything is always cool. And he is always cold beneath her, beside her, on top her. And she can't really tell, because she's been avoiding the question, but she knows that she is just as cool beneath the sheets, just as icy_.

One. Two. Threefourfivesixseven.

To the sound of them typing and clicking. It's haphazard - it's computers. _Vampires lying in bed with their laptops - god, are we bored already?_ But there is a lazy rhythm to them. _Hasn't there always been?_

One. Two. Threefourfive.

There is a lazy rhythm to the sounds of the house. _Which she is still getting used to_. Stefan restlessly pacing his room, alternately scratching away in his journal, txting _(Bonnie? Klaus? should she care?)_, and being still - so still she loses the sound of his movements at times for hours. _He was so rarely there - in the house. His nervous, pacing presence chafed her fraying nerves. And he sensed it - could hear the screams in the room down the hall, could see the marks she left on his brother's skin. And so he would disappear, and she would sink into the absence of him._

And Caroline marching up the stairs.

One. Two. Threefourfives-

"What the HELL are you doing? That cracking is driving me crazy!"

_Caroline marching up the stairs. Shit._

"Hey Care," her smile is weak and she knows it. Damon hardly reacts. _It's just a lazy Wednesday afternoon_.

"Ew. It _stinks_. How long have you been up here?" she throws open the curtain and the sunlight floods in _but Elena can't feel the heat of it - she reaches for it and all she feels is dust_. The blonde whirls back around, her nose wrinkling up distastefully, reaching out to touch Damon's face. "Do you have a five o'clock shadow?!"

Elena puts her laptop aside and crawls over _(her vampire boyfriend. How odd)_ and smooths his cheek with the back of her hand. "It's true!" her shocked voice is almost a whisper.

Damon lifts up his wrist - a silver handcuff attached to the bed encircling his raw skin. Elena coughs. _Oh yeah... _

Caroline has the decency not to blush. As Elena scrambles to find the key and unlock him from the bedpost. _The silly thing is, he could have gotten free at any moment. But he doesn't. He won't. _His eyes follow her slim body draped in his clothing as she rushes to and fro nervously, pulling her hair away from her face with one hand and tucking it behind one ear. _It's so greasy and limp; but she hardly notices, her senses so dulled to what used to be so important._

When Damon is unlocked he walks naked, carefully, without saying a word _(but raising an eyebrow sardonically at Caroline's stoic face)_, to the open bathroom and steps into the shower, leaning his head back into the water - his eyes boring into Elena even then.

Elena slumps back down on the bed.

_There's nothing she'd like more than to throw Caroline from the room (physically, oh so physically - with smashed wood flying and blood streaming down her pale face) and escape back into the large bed, wrapping the blankets around her head, trapping Damon beneath her legs and holding him there, with her in the dark, until she can breath again._

Caroline stands a cautious distance away, "Seriously Elena, you need a _shower_." She glances back at Damon and bites her lip. "Please shower? And then we'll go shopping! I found this list on the coffee table downstairs - Stefan didn't seem to know much about it, but he also doesn't really know where anything is in this house. It's ... weird."

Elena looks down at her own handwriting, scrawled quickly across the back of an electricity bill.

_~ toilet paper/paper towels~ bourbon  
~ deodorant  
~ toothpaste  
~ dry cleaning  
~ call the cable company  
~ __cheese__..._

It went on, but it made Elena dizzy to look at it. _How long ago did normal become an act?_ When did she start making lists like this? When had she discarded this one?

Caroline's voice was perky, "There's a lot of great weekend sales, so we can get most of this on your list and then some by tonight! And there's this great new movie Bonnie and I have been meaning to see with-"

"Wait." Elena's voice was low and hoarse. _Had it always been that way? Was it out of use? Was it just in contrast to Caroline- Care, always the soprano?_ "Weekend?" She closed her eyes, "Care, what day of the week is it?"

Caroline looked down at her in stunned silence.

"Saturday," Damon said from behind a cloud of steam, leaning over the bathroom mirror as he delicately shaved.

Elena nodded. _Okay. Saturday. Saturday isn't Wednesday_. She stood up and stripped on the way to the shower, calling over her shoulder, "A movie sounds great. I just need a shower."

_She heard her friend behind her whisper "Thank god."_

"I'll just look up showtimes and tell Bonnie we'll meet her for dinner and drinks in a few hours!"

Elena didn't think much about the fact that her laptop was still lying open on the bed as she let the water slip over her, as Damon joined her and scrubbed her clean.

_She stood as still as an infant and he cleaned, brushed, dried her with care. Sometimes she would stop moving, would realize that she was no longer breathing, and so he moved for her. It tried at her patience, but she allowed it. She'd rather just be still - and he let her be still - and sometimes she was too hard, too fast - left bruises on his arms and chest. She moved in spits and starts and lay fallow for days. And his presence irritated her, but she could not let him leave. And so she let him move for her when the energy ebbed out of her body, leaving her raw and bare. She tried, some days, not to cry, not to sit on the floor of the shower and mourn for the life she had lost and the people who had died for the sake of her ridiculous life ... but when she did, when she gave in to it all, when she let the tears stream down her face ... he sat silently waiting. It had only been three months, after all. Only three months since she died. Didn't she have the right to break down and cry? Only no one could ever know - and so he was silent. Suffocatingly, relieving-ly silent. While the rest of the world buzzed._

It wasn't until they were in the car, driving into town and Caroline said, so off-handedly as she always did, "I am so glad you're writing again, Elena! I read some of what was on your laptop! You have to tell me all about this story (I always knew you'd be a famous writer). Anyway. Tell me about Amy Pond."

And Elena laughed.


End file.
